From political economy to material culture Dr Gemma Carney ARK Ageing Programme School of Social Sciences Education and Social Work Queens University Belfast Northern Ireland What is critical gerontology ID: 932920
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Slide1
Slide2Using a critical gerontology lens:
From political economy to material culture
Dr.
Gemma Carney,
ARK Ageing Programme,
School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work,
Queen’s University Belfast,
Northern Ireland.
Slide3What is critical gerontology?
Why culture matters in health
How are norms and beliefs about health perpetrated through cultural practices?
Examples from my work… material culture and what it means to live a long life .
Slide4What is critical gerontology?
Slide5What is critical gerontology?
‘a collection of questions, problems and analyses that have been excluded by the established mainstream’ (
Baars
, 1991: 220);
‘a more value committed approach to social gerontology – a commitment not just to understand the social construction of ageing but to change it’ (Phillipson and Walker, 1987: 468);
Slide6What is critical gerontology?
Jan
Baars
Alan Walker
Chris Phillipson
Slide7What is critical gerontology?
Carroll Estes
M.
Minkler
Amanda
Grenier
Slide8Critical
Gerontology Lens
Slide9Critical Gerontology Lens
Carney, G. M. (2010) ‘Citizenship and Structured Dependency: the implications of policy design for senior political power’
Ageing & Society,
30: 229-251.
Carney, G. M. and Gray, M. (2015) ‘Unmasking the elderly mystique’: why it is time to make the personal political in ageing research;
Journal of Aging Studies,
35: 123-134.
Carney, G. M. (2017) ‘Towards a gender politics of aging’
Journal of Women & Aging,
30:3,
242-258
.
Slide10Slide11Social Dimensions of Scientific Knowledge
How is scientific knowledge
shaped by
human relations?
How can scientific knowledge
shape
human relations?
Slide12Knowledge of Human Ageing
Slide13How might scientific knowledge of ageing be shaping cultural responses to population change?
Slide14Culture Matters
Connections between culture and health are increasingly recognised.
‘In this context, the responsibilities of doctors and health systems, and the priorities of policy makers and researchers, are also collective behaviours based on social agreements and assumptions – i.e. on culture’ (Napier, et. al., 2014: 1608).
‘The real villain was culture – culture caused the crimes of neglect to occur, and the culture of UK’s NHS was responsible’ (Napier, et. al., 2014: 1608).
Slide15Current Culture of
Ageing and Health
It no longer makes sense to separate culture from biomedicine.
Cultural values and beliefs can impact on the of spread disease (even non-infectious disease).
As longer lives tend to be accompanied with complex health trajectories, we need to understand how our culture can accommodate these older people.
Slide16Current Culture of
Ageing and Health
Slide17Culture change in our response to longevity?
Slide18Example from my research:
The Lively Project
Slide19A History
of
the World in 100 Objects
Slide20Slide21The Lively Project
Slide22Pilot Project, 2016
April: received funding from
Wellcome Trust
June/July: recruitment and interviews
August: arts workshop
Sept-Dec: curation and creation of art work and objects
Dec, 2016: ‘Something of Who I Am’ exhibition in Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast
Jan 2017: Evaluation of project, publications/outputs.
Slide23Expanding the project
April 2017: Liberal Arts module proposal
June 2017: Collaborators’ meeting
July 2017: Presented paper at British Society of Gerontology annual conference
May 2018: Invited speaker at symposium Women, Aging and Life Narrative
Sept 2018: Publication of article in
Life Writing
October 2018: Expanded collaborators’ meeting ‘Arts, Humanities and Human Longevity’
Slide24Arts Workshop
Slide25Arts Workshop
Slide26Arts Workshop
Slide27Drew’s Initiative
Slide28Perfect specimen
Slide29Interviews
Provided narrative to accompany the objects;
Allowed artist and curator to get to know participants;
Quotations provided powerful means of communicating significance of object in exhibition;
Led to theme for exhibition ‘Something of Who I Am’.
Slide30How did the women we spoke to use objects to narrate the story of their lives?
Slide31Objects chosen on instinct
Pseudonym
Age
Home
Objects
Mary Duffy
62
Move
d recently from another city
Teddy Bear
Mother’s Dresser
Ornament
Plastic Flower
Book in
Gaelic language
Bike (gift from children)
Digital image of grandchildren
Slide32Objects related to activities
Pseudonym
Age
Home
Objects
Ruth
McRory
61
Living
in same house for decades
Handmade doll (son’s)
Photo Collage
Circus Programme
Yarn Bombing balaclava
Drumming
band tabard
Photograph of self and baby son with doll.
Slide33Objects offer chronology
Pseudonym
Age
Home
Objects
Penny
Nugent
80
In the
process of leaving house after 54 years.
Silver spoon
(late sister’s)
Passport from youth
Manicure set from husband
Nappy pin (children)
Toby Jug (Father’s)
Memory quilt (made of mother’s clothes)
Slide34Objects telling story of self:
Mary’s Teddy Bear
Penny’s Memory Quilt
Ruth’s Handmade Doll and photograph with son
Slide35Slide36Teddy Bear’s loss of condition is related to his value:
‘Yes, I suppose that originally he was covered in this nice, yellow fur. I actually never remember him like that. I remember him being baldy and battered as you can see… Unless, it’s just affection, years and years of being stroked and fondled… he’s just much loved you see. Love comes at a cost too.’
Slide37Teddy Bear evokes happy childhood memories:
‘If I did want to think about my childhood, it would be through different things with the bear… that would bring me back there, you know, its like a kind of touchstone? And it takes me right back and it’s the only thing I have… yeah, it is absolutely the only thing I have… I’ve nothing else from that period of my life.’
Slide38Slide39‘Spike’ the doll is a witness to her love for her son:
‘my father died, and for some reason you have this flurry of clearing things out, and I came upon two little undeveloped canisters of film… in the black and white set… and at the very end of the reel there was this one and another one, which I also have developed.. I don’t know whether they’re over-exposed but they’re almost like a silhouette and I just loved it… it was like art really, it lives beside my bed and so does the other one, yes, he’s holding Spike and we’re having a conversation.’
Slide40Slide41Penny’s admiration for her mother’s hard work, dynamism and self-starting nature is attested to in one object that tells the story of self - a memory quilt:
‘She was a great one for alpine flowers and she, in her 80s, was visiting Boulder, Colorado and going up mountains and looking at the plants and flowers… this is the Red Cross. She was a great walker, she was a historian and she was a great woman for stories.. She was a botanist, you know she left school at 14, but she was a self-educated botanist. She went over all the Latin names for flowers.’
Slide42Conclusion and Reflections
The objects offered women entry and exit points for various aspects and period of life when narrating their life histories;
The objects allowed the researchers to get greater insight and meaning, as well as a material emblem of life histories;
The objects prompted them to describe their lives in different ways – ways that were rooted, inter-connected and emotionally illuminating.’
Slide43Mary made connections between the condition of her Teddy Bear and the process of ageing:
‘I think to me there’s a slight metaphor here,
‘cause
this is the way life is… metaphorically the dog of life comes and eats your face off [laugh], it happens, and you just move on, you know.’
Slide44Project website
https://thelivelyproject.wordpress.com/about
/
Contact: g.carney@qub.ac.uk
Slide45‘Something of Who I am’
Slide46General Appeal
Slide47Relevance across borders…
Slide48Thought Experiment
The Lively Project
website (https://thelivelyproject.wordpress.com/about
/)
Using a critical lens:
In pairs, discuss how The Lively Project uses a critical gerontology lens.
If you were designing a culture matters in health project, what other media could you use?
Slide49References
H.J. Chatterjee (ed.), Touch in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling (Oxford: Berg, 2008).
H.J. Chatterjee and L. Hannan (eds), Engaging the Senses: Object-Based Learning in Higher Education (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015).
Pat Thane,
Old Age in English History. Past Experiences, Present Issues
(Oxford, 2000), pp. 21–4.